


Wings Of Clay

by PeculiarRavenclaw



Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
Genre: Gen, OC, Prequel, The Claywings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 01:36:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21348121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeculiarRavenclaw/pseuds/PeculiarRavenclaw
Summary: Jack Bentham was not susceptible to emotional entreaties. Ironically enough, it was an emotion, an intense jealousy and resentment against ymbrynes that had enabled him to become the leader of the Claywings.One-shot about the Claywings
Relationships: None
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	Wings Of Clay

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! Here's a one-shot about the Claywings that I've wanted to post for quite some time. Since very little is known about the Claywings, I've taken the liberty of creating a few original characters. Enjoy!  
By the way, I realize that Jack/Caul might seem too "human" in this, but I wanted to add some more depth and complexity to him.

Jack Bentham was not susceptible to emotional entreaties. He liked to keep his mind clear, his thoughts rational and lacking any sentiment that could possibly be used against him. A leader was supposed to embody power, ambition and strength of mind, he couldn’t let his vision get clouded by mundane feelings. 

Ironically enough, it was an emotion, an intense jealousy and resentment against ymbrynes that had enabled him to become the leader of the Claywings. The members of the movement were pawns to him, that he manipulated to his will to earn what he wanted. But the four first members to join him, when the name “Claywings” didn’t even exist yet were as close to him as best friends, even family. In fact, they were more than family. His own sister, Alma, was busy saving peculiars from the streets and babysitting them, a long and boring task. In the meantime, Myron, his younger brother was rotting in a cell, having dared to oppose him and his plans. 

While he would never admit it, these four people were dear to his heart, he almost loved them, if a man like Jack Bentham could be capable of loving anyone.

He couldn’t help but smile when he would see Carmen twirling and dancing around the house, her laugh ringing through the corridors. Sweet Carmen, with her caramel colored curls that smelled of vanilla and cinnamon, and her soothing words that could calm the mind even during the direst times. 

“We’ll find it, Jack!” she would tell him, grabbing his hands and forcing him to dance, “We’re close to succeeding, I can feel it! The Library of Souls will soon be ours!” 

Her optimism was contagious. Even skeptical Alexus (who liked to be call Lexi) would beam upon hearing those words. Like Carmen, Alexus was also an ymbryne who had rebelled against The Council of Ymbrynes and had left the Academy without finishing the training; Carmen because she felt like she didn’t belong there and Alexus because she refused to spend her life taking care of some strange children she’d rescue off the streets. Jack admired Alexus for that wise choice.  
Whereas their peculiarity was the same, Alexus and Carmen couldn’t be more different, whether appearance-wise or personality-wise. Alexus’ sleek dark brown hair contrasted with Carmen’s fluffy curls, Alexus had even dyed a strand of her hair red, a good representation of her fiery personality. She seemed to be born to counter Carmen’s shyness, her soft personality and equally soft heart. Alexus seemed to be made of steel. She strived for action and wasn’t overly fond of emotions. Jack and her would have long conversations filled with dark humor and sarcasm. 

Despite this steely persona, Alexus had fallen in love with Patrick, another one of the “First Four” as they liked to call themselves. If Jack had to name a best friend, that best friend would be Patrick. He was hard-working, ambitious but wasn’t afraid to be a dreamer. In some ways, he reminded him of Myron, but Jack would quickly shake that thought from his mind, not wanting to think about his starving brother in his dark cell. 

Then there was Daniel. He was the youngest of the five, an idealist who had great ideas. In fact, if the Claywings ever became immortal, it would be thanks to Daniel. He had come to Jack with a great plan: an ancient and barely known loop manipulation technique that could, with the help of Carmen and Alexus, eliminate the risks of aging forward and grant immortality. Of course, Jack was seduced by this plan forged by one of his most trusted friends. For a few seconds, he thought that the plan sounded like something Myron would come up with, but as always, since thinking of Myron involved emotions, he buried that thought deep in a corner of his mind, along with the images of his brother bruised, bleeding, being thrown into a cell and pleading for his life, reaching out a hand for him, the older brother who’d protected him until that day.

Jack Bentham was a man of many contradictions. He was relatively sane but also spectacularly crazy. He was polite but also harsh-spoken and didn’t mind swearing when needed. But above all, he was emotionless while being emotional. 

The Claywings never had the privilege to see his emotional side. They didn’t see when he got so nervous about never finding the Library of Souls that he would chew on his knuckles, occasionally and unintentionally leaving teeth marks. They didn’t see his desperation when he would throw things around in his room, furious at himself and hopeless because he never felt good enough. They didn’t get to see his hesitation as he stood in the kitchens, weighing whether to bring some food to his scared-out-of-his-mind and starved little brother who was probably curled up in a corner of his cell, weeping and murmuring pleas into the darkness. And they never saw any hint of affection except inside jokes and an unhealthy amount of sarcasm. The only person out of all the Claywings to ever witness his affectionate side was his 13-year-old godson, Jeremy Noah Thornton, nicknamed Jeremiah. 

Jack never accepted children into his ranks, and installed a strict rule that prohibited families with children or pregnant women from joining the Claywings movement, no matter how useful these new recruits could be to him. In his mind, children were needlessly noisy, clingy and a waste of space and money. There was no way he would welcome children in the movement. And he had never intended to make an exception to his well-known rule until the day Alexus and Patrick requested to talk to him in private and announced him that Alexus was unexpectedly pregnant. They apologized over and over and held their breath, anxiously waiting for his response. Surprisingly, Jack didn’t scream. He didn’t throw things or threaten to destroy them and throw them in a cell. For the sake of his friends, he only nodded and accepted that his friends would remain in the movement. In her gratefulness, Alexus hugged him and sobbed into his shoulder, mumbling something about him and godfather, which he didn’t take seriously. 

It wasn’t until the baby was born and forcibly put into his arms (he had insisted that no, he didn’t want to hold that baby, but to no avail) that he realized how serious Lexi had been about the whole godfather thing. His first instinct had been to push that child away, figuratively speaking. But little Jeremy was determined to worm his way through the sturdy walls of his godfather’s heart. As a baby, he would always smile when he saw Jack, not because he was particularly happy to see him, but because his godfather’s sense of style appealed to his senses. He would reach for the loops of gold jewelry dangling from Jack’s neck and tug onto the velvety fabric of his many capes, amazed by them. When he was a little older and started crawling, he would reach out for Jack, holding his chubby arms up and smiling, this time out of affection for this godfather that he saw so often. Surprisingly enough, Jack didn’t ignore him. When Jeremy requested it, he held him. He somehow couldn’t bring himself to push away that innocent soul who loved him, not for his plans or his authority, but for who he truly was. After some time, he even started tossing Jeremy into the air until the child was giggling uncontrollably, a game that went on until Jeremy was too old to be lifted. 

Once his godson wasn’t a helpless infant anymore, Jack tried to be more distant with him. He feared that his emotions would jeopardize his authority and that the members of the Claywings would belittle him. He managed to keep his distance for a few months. But then, Jeremy learned to speak and started calling him “Uncle Jack” and his resolve dissolved once more. Only this time, he vowed not to be afraid of his emotions. He was still as authoritarian and sometimes callous as ever, except his soft spot for his grandson.  
When he would go to foreign countries for expeditions (in hope of finding the Library of Souls), Jack would always bring something for Jeremy, whether candies or chocolate or toys, so much that Lexi had to tell him to stop buying things for her son. Needless to say, he refused to listen to her and basically spoiled the kid rotten. 

As he grew up, Jeremy became the mascot of the Claywings. He was adored by everyone in the movement. In an effort to help his Uncle Jack, Jeremy would often pose for the Claywings’ recruit posters, wearing fake wings and a nonchalant expression. His last picture was taken the day before the Siberia experiment, along with the ones of the other Claywings who desired to have a last printed memory of themselves before they turned immortal. 

Needless to say, it was not only their last pictures as mortal beings, but also, for most of them, their last pictures. The strongest ones of the Claywings survived the explosion and were turned into Hollows, but others who were younger or weaker didn’t make it. And the last thing Jeremy saw before his death was his parents screaming for him, trying to grasp him and protect him as they dissolved into shadows and slowly morphed into Hollows, and the utterly horrified and defeated expression on his godfather’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Please don't hesitate to leave a review!


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